I’ve been sending complaints to the Ministry of Magic as well. Jan Moir is a Death Eater better known to the wizarding world as Malefida Uggla, who has been “in hiding” among the Muggle world for the past 7 years.

Jan Moir has the right to free speech just like the rest of us. What she may now begin to realise is that as a journalist she also has a responsibility, as laid out by her own trade organisation, the PCC, not to peddle opinion as a cover for hate speech. She invented a statement concerning the “happy ever after myth of civil partnerships” when no one has ever suggested civil partnerships are any more successful then heterosexual marriage, and then used that “myth” to go after the relationship of Stephen Gately as the cause of his “unnatural” death. He is of course dead and in no position to defend himself. The coroner’s actual verdict of his dying from natural causes was of no interest to Jan Moir. She linked one gay man’s death, Kevin McGee, to this case and then labelled both with a “dangerous lifestyle.” If we exchanged the gay content of this piece with a racial context then I have little doubt the Incitement to Racial Hatred legislation would be examined. Jan Moir is a homophobe, and whatever the outcome of this police action I hope that it serves notice that our community and our straight allies are sick and tired of being de-humanised and bashed both figuratively and literally by hateful sectors of society like hers.

Now why would someone complain to the Police? That’s just ridiculous and any right-minded individual, straight or gay, would realise that. Why waste police time and resources investigating something which is clearly ‘not illegal’. It’s called free speech. I don’t agree with what she said or did, but she did nothing criminal.

luckily anon, we live in a democracy, and anyone has a right to make a complaint to the police. i am not a lawyer and i assume you are not. so how are you so confident that she clearly has not made any statements that could be considered as hate crime. i also believe in free speech but not when it denigrates a section of society. I would feel the same if she denigrated any section of society.

This is getting downright f_cking stupid. The woman is a columnist; that’s her job. Not everyone may agree with her opinions, but that’s what she does. It presumably sells newspapers. As a rather well known homosexual writer once said himself “There is no such thing as bad publicity”. The Press Complaints Commission can’t seem to find anything that breaches their code of conduct, and I’m certain there has been no criminal act taken place, so what the hell are the police going to do? I have heard of stories of 999 being called because someone couldn’t get their VCR to record Eastenders. It demonstrates the moronic approach people have to what they expect the police to do on behalf of the public.

Jan Moir may be a puckered-up old witch, but reporting her is farcical, and whoever did it deserves to be charged with wasting police time. They have far better things to be doing, like catching teenagers that murder old gay men in the middle of Trafalgar Square.

This article went to far.
She wrote the article with a lot of layers – if you developpe each idea/point it could be understood/translated into very strong discriminatory ideas – and yes you can get prosecuted for these kind of offences as in europe free speech doesnt really exist !!! if we had free speech Mr Gately would have had a different kind of reception yesterday !!!

RobN’s central statement is that (in the Moir article) “no criminal act” has taken place. There is a crime of “incitement to violence” which is a criminal offence. I think that the Moir article cannot be indicted as an incitement to violence, even though it is motivated by hostility and prejudice.

The “incitement to violence” allegation was levelled against homophobic lyrics ( http://www.campaignforhomosexualequality.org.uk/lyrics.htm ). Homophobia is a statutory aggravating factor where the crime of incitement to violence has been proved. But the lyrics complained about in that case were explicit. Moir’s article merely validates the kind of prejudice that’s typical of callous and ignorant people who have no regard for other people’s identities, Daily Mail readers for example.

The Pink Paper published, on 15 January 2009, ( http://www.pinknews.co.uk/news/articles/2005-10561.html/ ) an interesting story about the new crime of “incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation”. This was a “new crime” in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Bill.

However, the closing lines of that story give no grounds for optimism: “The new law against incitement to hatred on the grounds of sexual orientation is not likely to be used frequently. […] Indeed, similar laws against inciting racial hatred have only been used around 20 times in the 30 years since they came into force.” In other words, legal recourse against Moir may be available, but it is unlikely to be exercised.

First of all, to explain my own position about the article, I couldn’t have said it better than RobN (#5).

About your reply… you keep bringing up “incitement to violence”. I wonder if we’ve been reading the same article. As an aide santé mentale could you quote for me the particular incitement to violence you had in mind? …Because I certainly couldn’t find one.

Interesting comment about the now infamous Jan Moir from the posts on the mail website:-

“Following a statement Jan Moir recently released, I would like to point out a few things she said not so long ago about the Jonathon Ross affair…

‘Increasingly, the cloak of freedom of speech is used as a defence for the kind of deliberate, gratuitous disrespect that Ross and Brand displayed….They fatally underestimated public taste, values and our strong sense of British fair play’

So when you make a comment that utilises free speech as a defence for a deliberately gratuitous and disrespectful article that offends people the response is part of an orchestrated campaign, but when you agree with the cause it represents a strong sense of British fair play? Is that how it works. How hypocritical of you!

And for the record, it is this very strong sense of fair play you spoke of that has lead to this reaction to your disgraceful article. Just apologise for gods sake.
– Sean, Barnhurst, 16/10/2009 17:30″

This tiresome story about this third rate journalist is turning into hysteria now. The police? oh come on, grow a thicker skin. The person bringing this to the attention of the police should be done for wasting police time.

tsuchan – I think you’re asking me where the Moir article incites to violence. The point I was making was that it did not. By contrast the homophobic lyrics did explicitly. Moir’s article is malicious and prejudiced, and validates homophobic behaviour, but does not incite to violence.

That is in addition to the offence under Section 4 of the Public Order Act under which “A person is guilty of an offence if he […] distributes or displays to another person […] any writing […] which is […] threatening, abusive or insulting […] whereby that person is likely to believe that such violence will be used or it is likely that such violence will be provoked.”

amn14: Just because I dislike someone, (for whatever reason), and I voice my opinion merely states just that. How you react to that fact is out of my control and not my responsibility. Just because I say “I don’t like you” does not give others reading this Carte Blanche justification to then go out and kick the sh!t out of you.

This moronic government can issue all the edicts it likes, but if I think you are a no-good f_ckwit faggot, no law in the world is going to prevent that. Until George Orwell’s dystopian vision of the ‘Thought Police’ becomes reality, you can’t arrest anyone for simply holding a belief, or for that matter, stating it, as long as it is not actively inciting it. You are merely splitting hairs, spouting semantics and fundamentally sh!t-stirring.

Incidentally, for all those anti-Mail peasants with torches, the lovely Janet Street-Porter has written an article I think certainly redresses the odious Ms. Moir’s earlier rant:

RobN,
People get killed for all sorts of different reasons, one bloke killed another bloke on a London bus because he looked at the other fellow the wrong way (whatever way that was)I bet some on here would want to kill you for having such a loud mouth. And you can arrest someone for expressing a belief, if that belief incites violence. Trouble with you Rob is you know the price of everything and the value of nothing!

Actually, for once, agree with some of what RobN says. The article by Janet Street-Porter is quite good… for a Daily Mail article anyway.

And while its true that while the death of Stephen is very sad (as is anyone’s untimely demise), and this heinous Mr Moir is nothing more than an ill-informed bigot, the recent homophobic murder of Ian Baynham is more tragic and more sinister, but got less coverage.

Can we just nail this assertion that reporting the article to the police is a case of ‘wasting police time’.

There is no suggestion here that the police have been misled or misinformed or misdirected. The existence of the material being complained about is not being challenged, it was nationally published in line with a defined editorial policy, and the content is not being disputed – but the underlying motives are being disputed.

The police and their back-room advisers in the CPS are quite capable of deciding whether there is a criminal case to answer here. My guess is that when the CPS review it, they will conclude quite quickly that there is no winnable case and no police action will be taken. But the initial referral to the police was perfectly proper so that the possibility of there being a criminal act arising from a claim of incitement could be explored.

I agree with RobN on this occasion, turning it into a police matter is overkill.
And the Janet Street Porter article, while somewhat overdue goes someway towards a Daily Mail retraction… it’s just a shame Jan Moir still appears to believe she did nothing wrong and publishes an apology that’s almost as offensive as the original article. In any ordinary newspaper she’d be on borrowed time, but in the Mail bigotry gets you a leader column, a payrise and that coveted corner office!

Moir a journalist? Since when does a restaurant reviewer, which is what she really is, become a medical expert as to what this young man died of, totally dismissing the coroner’s report? Stone the bitch!

Involving the Police simply martyrs bigots (and how they love it) and makes things worse. In any case I am deeply uneasy about hate-speech as a crime. It is a vague and emotive notion, and basing criminal law on it threatens free speech and debate without actually challenging prejudice. I think it simply makes liberal pluralism look totalitarian and repressive, which is surely not the idea. Laws against incitement did need strengthening – in the old days it was only a crime to incite violence against a named individual and plainly this needed to be extended to cover social groups. But ‘incitement to hatred’? Just seeing Mary Whitehouse’s face on the tv in the old days did it for me re. religious busy-bodies. Ideas as wide as a barn door make very bad law.

The PCC is in a major bind. It cannot ignore the outrage Moir’s article has caused (apparently the 1000 complaints was the figure at about 4pm on Friday. Apparently it’s up to 21,000 complaints now). That is more complaints than every other complaint they have received in their existence.

If the PCC does nothing it will expose itself for what it in – a puny, toothless, irrelevant PR exercise by the media to ‘self-regulate’ ie it exists so they can claim that no outside regulation of the media should occur ever.

The trouble is that the PCC charter is not designed to deal with public outrage over a clearly bigotted article.

Moir’s sacking would solve all this for the Mail. If they don’t sack her and if the PCC do nothing people will question the integrity of having the PCC chaired by the editor of the Daily Mail.

If it were my local homophobic police force doing the so called investigation of the complaint against the Daily Mail & the Moir women…the police are more likely to simply ask for a signed autographed copy of the Moir article!

Did the Spanish authorities not conclude death by natural causes -Does Jan Moir think she is more qualified than the coroner. Ignorance and contempt – Her comments are typical of the right wing trash printed in that newspaper. The only shame is that the Police belong to the same right wing part of our society so there will be no justice for the unnecesary hurt caused to Stephens family and the injustice of reinforcing biggoted views to those who have such a narrow view of the LGBT community in the UK.

I can express my own opinion, it is my opinion, I also love to hear other’s opinions too, I may not agree with their opinion but I respect it.
It seems that today the Gay and lesbian rights movement want to steal my right to my opinion.
If I say anything negative on the subject of Homosexuality then I will be described a homophobic, not someone who has a different opinion.
This is quite intolerant on the gay and lesbian community to jump on someone and brand them homophobic just because they have a valid different opinion.
Perhaps the gay and Lesbian community have a phobia of homophobic.
This word homophobic, what does it mean???
I don’t like spiders , If I saw one I would be scared , You could say I have arachnophobia. If I see a homosexual , I would have no problem talking to him , Many have great and loving personalities , I would even give a gay a hug if we were friends, But I still disagree with the lifestyle, Am I a homophobic.?
We all have a right to our opinion and the gay rights are abusing our rights.
If i am a homophobic then i can’t help it as it is a phobia like the fear of spiders, I should be shown love because i can’t help my fears, Perhaps i can get help on the national health